Singapore Airlines changed a flight route between South Korea and the US earlier this year over fears about North Korean missile launches in the Asia-Pacific region, it has emerged.

An airline spokesperson told CNNMoney on Wednesday that it had rerouted daily flights between the South Korean capital, Seoul, and Los Angeles after Pyongyang test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in July.

On July 28 an Air France flight from Tokyo to Paris, carrying 323 people, passed just 60 miles from the splashdown site of a North Korean missile test, roughly five to ten minutes after it hit the water. The French airline expanded its no-fly zone over North Korea as a result.

North Korea’s attempts to develop an ICBM to carry a nuclear warhead to strike the American mainland have put commercial airlines operating in the busy East Asian airspace on alert, even though the chances of a plane colliding with a missile are miniscule.

According to guidelines issued by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a UN agency in charge of air safety, nations have the “responsibility to issue risk advisories regarding any threats to the safety of civilian aircraft operating in their airspace.”

Pyongyang, already subject to UN sanctions for its nuclear and missile programme, regularly fails to issue any warnings.